Palinka Festival

So, starting from the beginning.  Palinka, or fruit brandy, is almost a national drink here in Hungary.  Everyone drinks it, for every occasion and at any hour of the day.  Palainka brewing/distilling/infusing/whatever the term is is something almost every old dude picks up as a hobby.  It is also, needless to say, delicious--tasting something like fruit that has been set on fire.  And every so often, the guys here in Budapest get together to hold a Palinka Festival.  Because . . . duh

So here we have it.  In the middle of the Castle District, which is the part of town with ancient, beautiful castles and museums, dozens of distilleries set up shop serving tiny little glasses of palinka.  This, needless to say, attracted somewhat of a crowd:

The coolest part (other than the plethora of interesting and delicious liquors, which was also pretty cool) was the fact that this was set in the midst of some of the most beautiful architecture you've ever seen.  Take a look:

I mean, take a look at that wall.  It's probably older than the city of Seattle . . . and we were sitting on it drinking palinka.  If you don't think that's pretty cool, I'm not sure you and I can be friends anymore

As a side note, the whole event was sponsored by some company trying to promote their new tap-and-go debit cards, meaning that instead of paying cash you simply loaded up your card and paid with that.  While this was annoying and arbitrary, it's not less so than the normal method, which involves buying tickets, so I didn't particularly mind.  I was amused, however, by the kiosks they had scattered around to let you check your balance.  Now this is a good idea, because it would be annoying to have to keep track of a slowly declining balance over an hour or two while not drinking . . . add the booze in, and these things were a serious need.  The funny thing though is that it displays your balance in big bright letters so that everyone else waiting in line or even just walking by can see how much you have:

Meh, this guy only has like 5 bucks. Not worth picking his pocket.

Secondly, the bartender in me was pretty amused by the little contraptions a number of stalls had in order to pour perfect measurements.  Check it out:

Cool, huh?  Although the bartender in me also sympathized with these guys who, accustomed to pouring from a normal bottle, had to make the adjustment to how these new guys poured.  With . . . not always perfect results ;)

"But wait!" you're probably saying.  "Something is missing!  Surely, in all of this, there had to be some Hungarian food!"  Ten steps ahead of you guys

Hungarians do fair food right

I ended up getting . . . I don't remember what it was called.  Actually, I never knew what it was called, I just ordered it by pointing.  But it was basically a giant, super-crispy hash brown smothered in sour cream.  Pretty amazing

Anyways, the only drawback was that it was impossible to eat my food, drink my palinka, and take pictures at the same time.  So yeah . . . no more pictures were taken

Cheers!

Noah out